


Noche Oscura Del Alma [The Dark Night Of The Soul]

by ruric



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Community: slashthedrabble, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-21
Updated: 2005-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-07 20:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruric/pseuds/ruric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scent is important to a predator, it can tell you a lot about your prey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noche Oscura Del Alma [The Dark Night Of The Soul]

She always smelled of flowers.

At first it had been of violets, lilac and lavender. Light, gentle scents painting vivid pictures in his memory of walking in the woods as spring shaded to summer. Scents that stirred memories of warm afternoons and picnics with his lovers. Eating off crisp, white cotton cloths spread over the soft grass down by the river bank, then lying back and listening to the lazy buzz of pollen laden bees making their way home to the hives.

Her scent changed over time.

She adopted exotic, mysterious, sensual scents - gardenia, magnolia, jasmine. Scents for wearing at night, that left a clear trail he could track through fire, smoke, fog and the ozone rich stench of discharged rifles. Cloying scents that tried, and failed, to mask the heavy animal smell of blood and gore which accompanied them wherever they went.

He always smelled the same.

The $1200 dollar suits, starched shirts and expensive aftershave couldn't hide who and what he was. He smelled of wide open, empty country and big skies, of sudden, wildly torrential thunderstorms and the burnt electric crack of lightning. He smelled of grass, scorched brown, dried by the summer sun, stubbornly never relinquishing its tenuous hold on life. He smelled of rage and longing, so strong it made Angel's head spin, a want and need so vast he doubted it could ever be filled. All underlain with a rich animal musk that hit deep in Angel's belly, made his mouth water and conjured, vivid, hot, dark dreams of how it would feel to reach out, to touch and taste.

Angel was sure who she was, even when everyone else doubted.

She still smelled of flowers, this time bergamot, but the light floral scent was almost drowned by what he could smell all over her. When she came to him for help, when she'd begged him to make her over, he'd pushed her away – because he knew where she'd been, who she'd been with and who had sent her. On that day he'd rediscovered hate, cold fury blinding him to everything but the smell of her.

Eventually he'd tried to help, because a over century together had to mean something, because she was scared and proud as ever, because, in the end, she was Darla. He'd failed her, failed in his once chance to save her soul and watched from his knees, Lindsey's hand fisted in his hair, as she was damned yet again. He'd cursed himself a fool a thousand times over, because he should have known that Lindsey was so lost, so obsessed, so, God help him, in love, that he’d do anything to save her.

He took her into his bed not because he wanted to feel something besides the cold, or to stop the feeling. In simple truth he took her to his bed because he knew the thought of them together would rip Lindsey apart.

He'd expected pleasure from his revenge. Why then did he feel so hollow?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "scent" prompt on the LJ community [slashthedrabble](http://slashthedrabble.livejournal.com/).


End file.
